SAN JUAN (Reuters) - Hurricane Omar strengthened into a major Category 3 storm as it raced toward Puerto Rico and the small islands of the northeastern Caribbean, threatening to bring torrential rains that could trigger dangerous floods and mudslides on Thursday.

The 15th tropical cyclone of a busy Atlantic hurricane season, Omar formed north of the Dutch island of Curacao on Tuesday, briefly disrupted oil operations in Venezuela and shut down processing units at a refinery in the U.S. Virgin Islands.

Omar was a Category 3 storm on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale of hurricane intensity, with sustained winds of near 120 miles per hour (195 km per hour) as it passed between the Virgin Islands and the northern Leeward Islands, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said.

SarasotaRepub

10-16-2008, 08:27 AM

Winds up to 125mph now.

Looks like it's past the V.I. so that's good for them, it was moving pretty fast.

The good thing about being an island surrounded by deep water is storm
surge goes around ya, it's not a major damage factor. The bad part is that
you get big waves. When I was on St. Thomas during Bertha one of the (if not
the only) death from the storm was some "dude" who went out surfing. :rolleyes: